TRAINING HEALTH-PROFESSIONALS IN THE RECOGNITION AND TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION

A total of 423 health professionals, including physicians, psychologis ts, counselors, social workers, and nurses, attended a two-day program to increase awareness, recognition, and treatment of depression. In a preprogram opinion survey, nurses and social workers reported less pe rceived ability to recognize mood disorders compared with physicians a nd psychologists. In a group of 274 respondents who took a 20-item tes t of their knowledge about depression before and after attending the p rogram, scores for all professions increased after the program and pre test differences in scores between professions decreased. The results suggest that training was successful in increasing knowledge about dep ression among a diverse group of health professionals.